Teens Beat Girl on YouTube: But Why?
Posted by junger | April 10th, 2008
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The case of these cheerleaders who recorded their beating of a fellow teenager, 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay, and then posted the video online, has received a lot of attention in the media.
And it should. There's obviously something wrong when a bunch of kids attack another and then promote it as some sort of badge to be proud of. (I'm not going to post the video, but it's easy to find on YouTube.)
The coverage, however, seems to be only focusing on YouTube and MySpace and whether they should block these kinds of videos. The father is even "blaming the Internet" for the beating, which is about as moronic as blaming the telephone for prank phone calls.
But the fundamental question lacking in this entire storyline is an easy one: why?
Why did these teens beat up the other girl? Was it completely unprovoked? Did they do it in order to post a video and get their "15 megabytes of fame"?
(On a side note, that's the dumbest phrase ever. Seriously, stop trying to be punny, people.)
I don't know the answer — the only thing I can find is that "[the] suspected teen attackers claim the victim had been threatening them through postings on her MySpace page," according to WESH, the local NBC affiliate. The cops say they filmed it so they could put it online, but how did it come to that in the first place?
Look, obviously I'm not advocating beating up people and posting videos of it online. It's stupid, and you're going to get arrested. Cyber-bullying is a serious thing, as the family of Megan Meier tragically found out.
But the media isn't doing their duty here. Following the Internet storyline is one segment of the coverage, but every one is making the assumption that that's why they beat her up — to post a video online.
Can we get the real facts here, please?
The girl that was the victim of the assault Victoria, was purportedly, either going out with, or having relations with an ex boyfriend of one of the girls that assaulted her; (maybe she thought it was ok to be with him because it over between him & the other girl)
So the girl angry over the ex boyfriend said to Victoria she wanted to fight her, then she responded to being provoked by the bulletins etc.
So it's a case of bullying, Victoria shouldn't have responded to them since it was a bully trying to a fight, so she is the survivor of an assault caused by bullying
Just as a follow up here, this post has received a significant amount of traffic from people searching Google for WHY Victoria Lindsay was beaten.
Looks like I'm not the only one who had this fundamental question the media overlooked.
What is the matter with you? Is there any reason in this world that could justify this behavior? To even suggest that there was a rational excuse for this action makes you just as bad as these kids are! How about the guy who drilled holes in the pit bulls skull because it bit his son after his son was hurting the dog's pup? I guess the guy had a reason for what he did. He was getting even with the dog for hurting his kid. So these kids were beating up this girl because…???? How do you even attempt to justify such animalistic behavior? The dog was protecting its young. What reason did these kids have for beating a human being senseless? They should be locked away for good. they don't belong in society—ever!
While I recognize that people who are prone to criminal acts aren't good at forecasting the consequences of their action, the recently publicized events of young people committing crimes like rioting, assault and sexual assault and posting the videos to YouTube demostrates a remarkable inability to demonstrate any analytical thought whatsoever.
If you're going to video your crime, you might as well drop off a burned DVD to the police station, and save the officers some time.
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